At a time when the
Hillsboro Police
Department was in
need of some help,
Police Chief Ron Louie
took a chance and
endorsed the idea of
offering a mindful-
ness class within the
department. Louie had
himself been among
a handful of officers
in the 1970s who were
selected for an exper-
imental program that
trained them in new
approaches. “Instead
of walking into a crisis,
taking out the baton,
and throwing every-
body in jail,” he says,
“ we’d communicate.”
what goes on in the police car. “It’s a catastrophe
waiting to happen,” he concedes. “Maybe now I can
acknowledge that the distractions are taking place
but focus on one thing.”
Lemen, too, is giving it a shot. As a K-9 officer,
she says, “I’ve been taught that my stress runs
down-leash to my dog. If my dog is a little calmer,
maybe I’ll be a little more successful. Maybe because
I’m doing this mindful stuff, maybe that will help
me not be so amped up.”
As she was going through her daily routine
of putting on her bulletproof vest, belt, gun, a nd
boots, she realized something: she could put on her
uniform in a mindful way, rather tha n letting her
mind race. That would be good practice. Engaging
mindfully with routine daily tasks, she reasoned,
could help her in the field, when things are much,
much more complicated.
Goerling has a hypothesis: “The outcome of the
police/citizen encounter, every single one, is in large
part dependent on how well I am as a police officer.
If I’m not physically well, that creates some prob-
lems. If I’m not emotionally well, holistically well,
I’m not going to regulate my emotions very effec-
tively. I’m not going to listen very effectively. I’m not
going to be empathetic.”
Mindfulness, he believes, is “where emotional
intelligence a nd wellness come together.” If officers
are trained in mind work, if they practice it, they’ll
feel better. They’ll police better. And that ’s good for
the community.
This isn’t just about tiny Hillsboro, Oregon,
either. If Goerling had his way, officers wouldn’t
be driving around in the police cars that Russell
described. “ How do we desig n a cockpit that is less
dema nding on the cognition of police officers?”
he wonders. Where else can we make cops’ work
easier? Can his officers—a g roup who was brave
enough to go through this unusual class—play a role
in shaping police work across the country?
“My vision is that we become the epicenter of
positive cultural change in law enforcement,” says
Goerling.
“Because of our perfect storm of where we are,
because of how screwed up things are, a lot of good
things are happening.” ●
Maureen O’Hagan is a Pulitzer Prize-
winning Seattle Times reporter.